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Jedediah Edgerton, son of John and Elizabeth (Prentice) Edgerton.

 

born:

April 29, 1763; Norwich, New London Co., CT.  (VRp I:305)

bapt:

May 29, 1763; First Cong. Church; Norwich, New London Co., CT.  (ChR 2:151)

 

married:

March 11, 1788; Lyme, New London Co., CT.  (VR 1:87)

 

Esther DeWolf, daughter of Josiah and Martha (Ely) DeWolf.

 

born:

January 25, 1753; Lyme, New London Co., CT.  (VR 1:18)

bapt:

February 11, 1753; Old Lyme Cong. Church; Lyme, New London Co., CT.

 

Children:

  1. Lucy, b. August 11, 1788; Lyme, New London Co., CT.
  2. Polly, b. November 12, 1789; Lyme, New London Co., CT.
  3. Daniel, b. November 29, 1791; Lyme, New London Co., CT.

 


Jedediah Edgerton was born in Norwich, Connecticut on April 29, 1763.  He was the next-to-youngest son of John Edgerton III and his wife Elizabeth Prentice.  Jedediah was baptized at the First Congregational Church of Norwich on May 29, 1763.

 

Jedediah was raised in Norwich.  His father died in 1778, and the following year Jedediah’s uncle, Elisha Edgerton, was appointed guardian over Jedediah (then aged 15) and his younger brother, Andrew.  According to the settlement of his father’s estate (April 5th, 1779), Jedediah inherited an equal portion (as did his four siblings) of his father’s lands in Norwich. 

 

Upon his maturity, Jedediah removed from Norwich and settled in Lyme, New London Co., Connecticut.  He was married there, on March 11, 1788, to Esther Wallis (aka. Wallace).  The record of the family at Lyme (VR 1:87) also lists the births of three children to Jedediah and Esther – two daughters, Lucy and Polly, and one son, Daniel.  There may have been another son, as indicated by later census records (see below).

 

The identity of Jedediah’s wife, Esther, is somewhat of a mystery.  As mentioned above, the record of the family at Lyme lists her only as “Esther Wallis, of Lyme”.  A search of the Lyme Vital Records, however, has failed to find any Wallis/Wallace families, much less an Esther Wallace born there in the mid-1700’s.  A search of the Lyme Church Records produced similarly scant results, save for a marriage on April 8, 1779 at the Old Lyme Congregational Church of Will[iam] Wallice and Esther DeWolf.  This Esther DeWolf was born in Lyme on January 25, 1753 (VR 1:18), the daughter of Josiah and Martha DeWolf, and was baptized at the Old Lyme Congregational Church on February 11, 1753.  There is no further record of William and Esther (DeWolf) Wallace in Lyme, nor of any children born to them.  It is thus reasonable to speculate that Esther may have been widowed shortly after her marriage (in the early 1780’s), and that she was the “Esther Wallis” who married Jedediah Edgerton in 1788.  If so, Esther would have been ten years older than her second husband – a bit unusual for the time, but not entirely unprecedented.  Documented proof of Esther’s parentage has yet to be found; however, the fact that Esther’s son, Daniel, named his youngest son Daniel DeWolf Edgerton supplies strong circumstantial evidence to the above theory.

 

There are currently no authoritative records on the family of Jedediah and Esther Edgerton following the birth of their son Daniel in 1791.  Jedediah is said to have removed (probably circa 1795) to New York State.  Edgerton Family Genealogy (Ida F. Welch, et.al., 1964) states that he later settled in Herkimer and Schoharie Counties, New York.  (This is corroborated by Frederick C. Pierce’s Foster Genealogy – see below)  About the same time, Jedediah’s next-elder brother, Stephen, also removed from Connecticut to central New York State.  (Stephen settled in Sangerfield, Oneida County).  Another brother, Andrew, is believed to be the Andrew Edgerton who settled in Rock Stream, Yates County, New York.

 

Jedediah Edgerton was listed as a head of household in the 1800 Census of Albany County, New York.  The enumeration of the household would coincide fairly well with the documented family of Jedediah Edgerton, apart from the age range listed for Jedediah.  That is,

 

1 male “over 45 years of age”  (Jedediah – actually aged 37);

1 male “under 10 years of age”  (son Daniel);

1 female “over 45 years of age”  (wife Esther); and,

2 females “of 10 and under 16”  (daughters Lucy and Polly).

                 

The household of Jedediah Edgerton was recorded in the 1810 Federal Census of Cobleskill, Schoharie County, New York (pg. 55), with the following enumeration:

 

1 male “over 45 years of age”  (Jedediah);

1 male “of 16 and under 26”  (son Daniel);

1 female “over 45 years of age”  (wife Esther);

1 female “of 16 and under 26”  (daughter Lucy or Polly, unmarried); and,

1 female “under 10 years of age”  (?)

 

Currently, there is no record of the death of Jedediah Edgerton or his wife, Esther.  According to the Foster Genealogy (Pierce, Frederick Clifton; W.B. Conkey Co., Chicago, IL, 1899; pg. 577-9), Jedediah had come to Schoharie, New York in 1806 and bought a farm there where the family resided a number of years before removing to Salisbury, in Herkimer County, New York.  It is not known when or where Jedediah or Esther died.

 

Jedediah and Esther’s daughter Polly married George Adams of Marlboro, Vermont, and settled in Jefferson County, New York.  George died in Theresa, Jefferson County, New York in 1849; and Polly died in Antwerp (also Jefferson Co.) on January 21, 1874.  Polly was buried at the Vrooman Hill Cemetery in Antwerp, where her gravestone records her death aged “84 years, 2 months”.  Jedediah’s son, Daniel Edgerton, married Jemima Foster of Salisbury and settled initially in Columbia, Herkimer County, New York.  The family also resided in Antwerp (Jefferson County) and Martinsburg (Lewis County) before settling finally in Ava (Oneida County).  There is no further record of the eldest daughter, Lucy.